I was always making things. I made model airplanes and did a number of hands-on activities. I liked creating in some form or another, not realizing what it was all about.

At school there were some programs in music. I did take piano lessons, and we had a piano at home. I got very interested in that.

The class situation [at Art Institute on Elmwood Avenue] was such that one would be very much on their own to paint or draw. The faculty was roving to give opinions or help out technically, which all the faculty did very well.

One association with the arts that I vividly remember was a magazine called Normal Instructor, a teachers' magazine, that Miss George would hold up with illustrations of great artworks like [Vincent] van Gogh and Rembrandt [van Rijn].

I graduated in June 1948 and then went in the fall to the art school. I stayed with my cousins on Seventeenth Street in the beginning, and later had my own apartment very near there and was able to walk to the Art Institute on Elmwood Avenue. The school had a faculty of local artists - Jeanette and Robert Blair, James Vullo who were well known in the area. It was a school that I think thrived on returning GIs, as many schools did at that time. It was a very informal program - but it was professional.

I've always been a keen cyclist, I'm very close to the world of cycling. Not just cycling really - also walking, adventures, being a curious person, traveling to new countries.

Maybe that's what I've based my career on: getting up earlier than everyone else so I get an extra couple of hours.